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Sorry, no pictures this week after all. I'm trying to re-work the web
pages, so my attention has been there. I also managed to pop a rib out
of place on Monday and haven't been able to do to much this week.
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I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail
images!
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- The WWF had In Your House: The Unforgiven on Sunday. I find it tough
to be positive about the show which was pretty much along the lines of
other recent WWF shows: weak undercard and good main event. In this
case, however, the main event wasn't as good as a Shawn Michaels tour
de force and the undercard was weaker than usual. A lot of the
problems were due to injuries or slow recoveries, of course (Ken
Shamrock, Owen Hart, Steve Austin), and, knowing this going in, the
booking and commentary focused on story lines more than ever. There
were way too many screwy finishes. Only the main event had some actual
in-match psychology. The Austin vs. Vince McMahon story line is
incredible and they did a great job of furthering it here and, for
that reason alone, I lean towards giving the show a thumbs in the
middle (bordering down). Run-down:
* Ken Shamrock & Steve Blackman & Faarooq beat Rocky Maivia & D-Lo
Brown & Mark Henry: Lacklustre opener. With Ken injured, D-Lo was
the best performer in the ring. Rocky has developed very good
charisma, but his work has stagnated. The others are not good. At
one point, Faarooq was to receive a facebuster (bent over for a
back body drop, but his opponent grabs his head and drives him
into the mat) and jumped into the air way too soon, making the
move look really bad. For someone with so much experience, Faarooq
sure makes a lot of those types of mistakes. Mark Henry looked
absolutely horrible. The match went way too long for the story
that these guys are capable of telling. Faarooq got the pin with a
poor Dominator. Not a good start.
* Hunter Hearst Helmsley beat Owen Hart to retain the European
title: I'm not sure why the booking was so overly creative in this
match; surely the wrestlers can actually deliver something
entertaining without relying on so many gimmicks. Chyna was
suspended beside the ring in a steel cage. At the start, as Chyna
was being put in the cage, the wrestlers brawled in the aisle.
Owen wanted to whip HHH into the cage, but Sgt. Slaughter was in
the way. He actually had to signal to the ref to get Slaughter to
move before he could do his spot. It looked amateurish. With Chyna
above the ring, the match served as a backdrop for her shenanigans
for a handful or more minutes. While the wrestlers delivered a
circa-1985 match, with loads of restholds and no real psychology,
the camera kept cutting to Chyna who tried to bend the bars on the
cage, got a file out of her stockings and tried to file the bars,
dropped the file, bent the bars, tried to lower herself from the
cage, etc. The match was secondary to all of this. Owen hit an
enzuigiri, which Jim Ross called an "enzugoori" again. HHH did his
lame head-hits-the-post spot when Owen launched him into the
corner. Finally, Chyna was hanging from the cage, too high off the
floor to drop without injury, so Road Dog comandeered the controls
and lowered the cage, making some of her efforts seem wasted. Just
to make all of Chyna's work meaningless, X-Pac ran in the ring and
hit Owen with a fire extinguisher, hitting Owen upside the head to
set up the pin. Disappointing compared to their WrestleMania
match, which wasn't that great to begin with. Owen swore in his
post-match interview.
* Midnight Express beat Rock'n'Roll Express in a special added
match: I guess, since they were in Greensboro, that Jim Cornette
managed to convince the powers that be that it was the perfect
chance to put his guys over in a region where Cornette drew a lot
of heat. So, of course, the new Midnight Express faced the old
Rock'n'Roll Express in a match out of the 1985 Cornette handbook.
They didn't go long at all (ten minutes with entrances), and the
match had a lot of antics from Cornette. I wouldn't call this good
or bad since it went so short, but it was interesting to see that
the match got no heat whatsoever. Cornette insulted the fans as if
they were the same fans who watched the ME vs. RnR feud a decade
ago. Wrong.
* Luna beat Sable in an evening gown match: Years ago, my university
pals and I might pop into a strip club for a beer after seeing a
movie, say. Clubs go full nude here, so the usual routine was for
a girl to dance to three songs, the first fully-clothed, the
second topless, and the third totally nude. We were always curious
to notice that the strippers who had purchased huge breasts would
go bottomless in the second song before revealing their breasts in
their final act. Although we couldn't figure it out, I guess some
guys like big store-bought sacs of silicon, so that was their
primary money maker. That's what this match reminded me of.
Partway in, Sable had the bottom of her dress removed, revealing
her thong underwear. She bent over in different ways while going
after Luna for several minutes, but the big pay-off was when Luna
ripped Sable's top off to reveal more silicon than my Pentium II
sports. Marc Mero's distraction led to the finish. Jerry Lawler
was blubbering about Sable like she was a thirteen year-old.
* New Age Outlaws beat LOD 2000 to retain the WWF Tag Titles: Boy, I
hope that LOD's modified name doesn't mean that they'll be around
that long. They were horrible. Hawk screwed up a body slam early
on, with Jim Ross saying that perspiration was the reason. Ross
called the Doomsday Device finish the Devastation Device several
times. The match was one bad, long heat segment on Animal. The
finish was also something out of 1985, with Hawk german suplexing
Road Dog for the double pin finish, with the ref only counting
down Hawk's shoulders even though his position wouldn't let him do
that. Really out-dated screw job finish. They tried to give the
LOD an edge afterwards by having them hit the Devastation Device
on referee Jack Doane, who did a stretcher job. Sunny looked
better than either of the women in the previous match, IMO.
* Jeff Jarrett sang: This should have been on RAW. Obviously
lip-synched. Steve Blackman attacked JJ afterwards, only to be
laidout by a guitar shot and put in the figure-four, which he had
no idea how to sell.
* Undertaker beat Kane in an inferno match: The loser had to be set
on fire in this match, a gimmick that allows a finish without a
pin or submission from either guy. The idea was that, with the red
light and the flames, we were watching the match in hell. It felt
like it. They had a very professional flame set-up, better by far
than any of the dangerous crap that other guys have done. But, to
make sure that people could see the match, they had the flame set
low, so that the tops of the flames maybe reached the bottom rope.
There was a techie at a mixer-type set-up, who would push a slider
up and down to make the flame shoot high (up to the top rope)
whenever there was a big move in the match. That made the whole
thing seem really hokey, IMO, particularly when the flames went
high to block Undertaker from leaving the ring. Is the techie in
Kane's stable? It's like the handcuff keys in WCW. The match was
like a battle royal in that they did nothing while teasing that
somebody was going to get knocked into the flame. Every time they
were just over a foot away from the flame, Jim Ross and Jerry
Lawler would say that they were "inches away from the fire." The
commentators also said that the heat was unbearable at ringside,
yet the fans directly behind them around ringside all looked
relaxed and confortable. It just didn't work well. Kane went out
over the top rope, tried to run away, was met by Vader, who sent
him back to ringside only to be met by a tope suicida from the
Undertaker, really the only interesting spot of the match. Vader
disappeared. Undertaker chased Bearer from ringside to the back,
but Bearer apparently decided that going out the curtain to the
backstage area for a true escape was not a good idea. A much
better idea was heading to the stage on which Jarrett had
performed. Sensible. Of course, Undertaker laid him out. During
this time, Kane was lying at ringside partly under the ring. When
Undertaker returned to ringside to continue his assault on Kane,
Kane stood first, revealing that in UT's absence he had covered
his right arm with the world's largest condom. To mask this, he
tried to move quickly, hitting Undertaker with a chair shot; kids,
there's no such thing as a safe chair shot, but this was a safer
chair shot. Of course, UT blocked it and Kane stumbled towards the
fire, inserting his right arm into the flame. He ran to the back
with the flaming prophylactic on his arm, clearly visible through
the flames. It was like one of the old Batman or Lost In Space
episodes, despite all of the high tech additions. Really kitchy.
* Steve Austin lost by DQ to Dude Love but retained the WWF Title:
The idea is that Steve Austin is a horrible representative for the
WWF, so Vince McMahon wants to get the title off of him. Hmmm,
Austin won the belt from Shawn Michaels, who played strip poker on
RAW once, introduced the crotch chop to the WWF, bared his butt at
XMas, stuffed his crotch with a sock, etc. Oh well, it's still a
hot story line. When Dude Love came out, a fan at ringside held up
a sign that asked, "Who Farted?" The match was mostly brawling
stuff, but there was at least some sense to it, as Dude
continually worked over Austin's neck, the spot of surgery. The
commentators opted not to talk about the focus of the ring work,
even though this was the only time in the evening that the match
had some psychology, choosing instead to talk about the story line
of Vince vs. Austin. Dude took some crazy bumps; Austin was pretty
careful in that regard, taking a backdrop on the concrete, but
protecting himself. At around the ten minute mark, Vince McMahon,
Pat Patterson, and Jerry Brisco came down to ringside with a steel
chair for Vince to sit on. Vince looked at the timekeeper and gave
a conspirational nod. When Austin was at risk of being counted
out, Vince yelled at him to "be a man, get back in the ring" since
Vince wouldn't get the title off of him with a count out. The
commentators explained none of this. Dude put on the abdominal
stretch for a few seconds, long enough for Vince to gesture to the
timekeeper, who was not looking his way during that opportunity.
It's still all about Bret Hart. Then we had the requisite ref
bump, with Dude coming up with the mandible claw. Vince tried to
wake up the ref, to no avail. Outside the ring, Vince got close to
the action, helping Dude to his feet. Austin laid in a chair shot
clearly directed at Vince. Austin hit the stunner on Dude and
counted his own pin, but the referee overturned it to a DQ. Vince
was stretchered out. Strong match, with good story line on
different levels, but the commentary was horrible.
RAW was a live show following the Unforgiven PPV. The first noticeable
change was that Vince McMahon was now referred to as Mr. McMahon by
everybody. In the opener, Owen Hart & Ken Shamrock faced Mark Henry &
Rocky Maivia. Almost instantly, Owen turned on Ken, hitting him low,
wrapping a chair around his ankle, and biting his ear a la Mike Tyson.
Surely this angle is supposed to explain Ken's legit ankle injury, but
it made no sense. People complained about Bret Hart's supposed turn on
Nitro last week, yet his actions can at least have a logical
explanation. The second edition of Dude Love's Love Shack took place;
since the first one stunk, there was only one way to make the second
one better: add half-naked women. If those were the same two women
that mobbed Dude as groupies when he debuted, then one of them is
Shawn Michaels fiancee. I can't be bothered to check tapes.
Head Bangers and Terry Funk & 2 Cold Scorpio went to no decision in a
match that was to determine who gets a title shot. Remember my
write-up on psychology and transitions last week? This match was a
prime example of how things can degenerate into a spot exhibition.
Firstly, we need to have Terry Funk do a moonsault, right? So
everybody else pretends to brawl at ringside while the old guy gets
set. It takes forever for him to get up there, though, so the
"brawling" is interrupted by stoppages where everybody turns their
head to see if he's ready yet. When he isn't, they resort to a couple
more weak punches to nothing in particular before checking on Terry
again. Horrible. Terry comes off, with everybody catching him. 2 Cold
recovers and goes to the top rope for a plancha, with the Bangers
standing and waiting for him in a similarly embarrassing situation.
Ugh. Scorpio hits a powerbomb and a moonsault just to display two more
moves with no rhyme or reason after the match falls apart on the
outside. A head banger goes for a suplerplex, sitting 2 Cold on top
and then climbing up to lift him. No punch beforehand or anything to
explain why Scorpio sits there; afterall this is just an exhibition of
spots not a match. When he gets in superplex position, Scorpio
oblidges by noticeable climbing the ropes to help out. Absolutely
terrible! Compare this to a New Japan junior superplex spot. Firstly,
the recipient is already senseless when he's put up on the ropes.
Still, when the guy on offence climbs the rope, the guy on the
turnbuckle struggles because he knows what's coming isn't good. They
smack each other a bit. Maybe the guy on offence gets knocked down. If
he doesn't, he might hit a martial arts kick to the other guy. If not,
he definitely hits him more. Once he's got the guy ready for the
superplex, he has to use his free hand (usually the left; the one away
from the victim's body) to punch the recipient in the side a bit. This
explains how he gets the guy to bend to his will for the superplex: by
making him worry about the shots to the side, the guy on offence is
able to maneuver into the superplex position. Add to the whole
description that all of this happens in mere seconds and you start to
understand how psychology and transitions are intrinsic to the New
Japan junior style. Maybe you also realize why it is not the case that
all of those New Japan juniors, WCW Cruisers, WWF Lightheavies, and
others are interchangeable. After the pathetic superplex, the other
Head Banger delivered a weak-looking top-rope splash. Bad execution,
no transitions or psychology.
Jeff Jarrett faced Bradshaw in a match with no finish as Klub Kamikaze
runs in along with Wally Yamaguchi under a hood. All of the Japanese
guys look like midgets alongside Bradshaw, making this story line
incomprehensible. Story about Yamaguchi: on 04/02/93, All Japan Women,
along with wrestlers from the other women's groups, put on Dream Slam
I, quite inarguably one of the best ever wrestling shows on the
planet. On the show, Akira Hokuto faced Shinobu Kandori in a match
that would end up winning magazine awards. Kandori comes from a judo
background (and, in fact, is presently the WWWA champion; that's AJW's
single belt). Although she'd been in wrestling for a number of years
already, she's always had a shooter style to her. Hokuto you (better!)
all know. The match was an incredible double blood bath. Since Kandori
had never bladed before, they had Wally Yamaguchi working as a
ringside referee. When the women brawled into the crowd, Wally chased
them down to coax them back into the ring. At the same time, he sliced
both of the girls. He screwed up with Hokuto, cutting her very deeply
right above the eye. That's what led to all of the blood in the match.
Throughout the show, they aired clips of DX assaulting WCW's show in
the same town. It was pretty stupid. Jerry Lawler commented that
"These guys have got the kahunas to go" attack WCW. Twice in two
weeks. What's so hard about kahunas and cajones?
New Age Outlaws lost a non title match to Eight Ball & Skull. Bad
match, with the twins switching and getting a quickie crucifix pin out
of a cover. Undertaker beat Barry Windham in a less than one-minute
squash. Dan Severn took on Hunter Hearst Helmsley after HHH issued a
challenge; wait, Jim Cornette told Dan not to do it, so Dan laid out
Jimmy and the challenge by HHH was forgotten about. Marc Mero was
challenged to a match on RAW in two weeks by Sable. Weird.
Steve Austin faced Goldust in the main event, with the WWF Title on
the line. In addition, Jerry Brisco was the referee for the match and
Vince McMahon came out and replaced the timekeeper. They are going
overboard with what is best served as a subtle angle. It's a bad angle
in the sense that we'll never see any real victories in matches. The
match was nothin special. At the finish, Vince knocked out Brisco with
the title belt; Brisco was bleeding. The show went off the air with no
decision announced. Next thing we know, Vince will be refereeing
Austin's matches.
Next week on RAW, Owen Hart explains why he's aligned himself with the
Nation of Domination and Terry Funk faces Cactus Jack in an anything
goes match.
From the Observer, "Even though WWF has better stories, it is clear
that [while] WCW can deliver a wrestling product, WWF doesn't have the
talent to come close." It reminds me a bit of All Japan vs. New Japan.
AJ can't compete with NJ when it comes to money and talent depth, so
they had to do something to maintain a presence. Unlike the WWF which
turned to stories, the North American lifeblood of pro-wrestling, All
Japan turned to better pure athleticism and a grueling style.
Nitro was a one-hour show in Canada this week, airing the hour from
Monday night in the US. The extra two hours never aired in Canada. The
single hour show was a throwaway, with lots of interviews. The only
wrestling saw Chris Jericho beat Chavo Guerrero Jr. and Bill Goldberg
beat Scott Norton. The Jericho match was too short, which it too bad
because those guys could put on a show. Goldberg is now 77-0. I wonder
who he'll face when he's 99-0; that's obviously the chance to draw
some big money with him before he shows whether he's a flash in the
pan or not.
Thunder wasn't on this week. I screwed up last week and didn't tape
the show on WTBS. Fortunately for me, fans in Southern Ontario get
Thunder overnight on Sunday, so I was able to pick up the show then.
BTW, for fans in the area, Thunder is listed on CHCH this weekend as
usual, but, since there was no show on TBS this week, maybe they'll
get a tape of the two-hour Nitro. It's worth checking. Last week's
Thunder had the terrible injury to Buff Bagwell. After my car accident
in 1992 and all of the therapies I've tried since then, I sometimes
find that I can't watch the replays of these sorts of bumps, and this
was just such a case. Word is that Buff will be out for about one
year.
- was reviewed very positively in the Observer this week. Initial
reader polls saw a 91% thumbs up rating, with best match honors going
to DDP vs. Raven, Ultimo Dragon vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr., and Chris
Benoit vs. Booker T, in that order. Worst match went to Davey Boy
Smith vs. Curt Hennig so far. According to Meltzer, "not only was it a
very good show, but for the first time since September, WCW actually
ended a show with a decent match." And later, "the show featured two
of the three best PPV matches thus far this year, a great brawl
between Diamond Dallas Page and Raven where Raven captured the US
Title, and a suprisingly great wrestling match with Ultimo Dragon, the
smoothest wrestler on the planet, and the rapidly improving and
hilarious straight man, Chavo Guerrero Jr.
"Even the Hulk Hogan & Kevin Nash vs. Roddy Piper & The Giant bat
match, which figured on paper to be horrible, wasn't that bad and at
least told a story."
Of course, the third match in the top three best PPV matches mentioned
above is the Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Super Calo & Lizmark Jr. & Juventud
Guerrera vs. La Parka & El Dandy & Silver King & Psicosis opener from
Souled Out II. These three matches are the only * * * * matches on PPV
so far in 1998.
- WCW is going to push Bret Hart as being obsessed with beating Hulk
Hogan for a world title, in this case the WCW Title. As a result, he's
going to be protecting Hogan from losses in the short-term, building
to a title change match between the two of them. The "Bret turned"
talk was premature.
Obviously, the Hart vs. Hogan story-line is planned to lead to WCW
touring Canada for the first time (they ran a couple of shows in
Toronto years ago, but this had been a WWF area for house shows for a
long time). To counteract that, the WWF is planning two PPVs from
Canada this year, surrounded with a lot of RAW and other house show
dates.
- Strangely, a couple of weeks ago, rec.sport.pro-wrestling
disappeared from the University of Waterloo's news servers. If anybody
is wondering why any UW regulars in the newsgroup (Doug Corti?) are
not posting, that's likely responsible for it. Of course, there are
ways to read news from other servers. Since the UW server hadn't
picked up rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated, I decided to track down a
way of reading and posting to both groups.
- As expected, the incidents where a fan attacked Raven on Nitro and
Thunder were actually planned incidents by Raven to try to make
himself seem more over than he is. There's some question about the
first incident, with some people claiming that the fan was arrested,
but the second time around it was Mortis in street clothes attacking
Raven from the crowd. The whole idea has been deep-sixed because it
encourages that crazy behaviour from fans.
- All Japan has a Tokyo Dome show on 05/01/98. Line-up has:
* Mitsuhara Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada for the Triple Crown in a no
time-limit match
* Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace vs. Stan Hansen & Vader
* Jun Akiyama vs. Hiro Hase
* Wolf Hawkfield & Johnny Smith vs. Jado & Gedo
* Tamon Honda & Masao Inoue vs. Headhunters
* Jumbo Tsuruta & Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota vs. Masa Fuchi &
Haruka Eigen & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi
* Maunakea Mossman vs. Daisuke Ikeda
* Steve Williams & Gary Albright vs. Yoshihiro Takayama & Masahito
Kakihara
* Akira Taue & Takao Omori & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Gladiator & Hideki
Hosaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda
* Giant Baba & Hayabusa & Kentaro Shiga vs. Giant Kimala II &
Ryakaku Izumida & Jinsei Shinzaki
* Satoru Asako vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru
Misawa is skipping knee surgery to work this match. He'll supposedly
get the operation afterwards, but he's hesitant about taking off the
year-or-so that it would take for his body to recover from accumluated
injuries of working the toughest style in the wrestling world.
- Nitro beat RAW 04/20 with a 5.1 rating against a 4.4 rating.
Throughout May, RAW will air unopposed. On 04/27, RAW drew a 5.7
rating. Nitro will be jostled all over the map.
The detailed ratings are a click away.
- PPV buy rates and revenue (in millions) for the WWF and WCW are
presented in the following table.
WCW
WWF
Past 6 Months
Past Year
Past 6 Months
Past Year
Average Buy Rate
1.11
0.95
0.63
0.64
Average PPV Revenue
$3.86
$3.15
$2.26
$1.93
I have not lumped in the WrestleMania figures in the above table,
since I'm still waiting to hear how the numbers settle. Presently, it
looks like WrestleMania will come in at just over a 2.0, which is a
tremendous figure. However, with the cost of Mike Tyson thrown into
the mix, WCW's Starrcade probably actually left more money with the
promotion. Here's the 1998 summary sheet:
Date Show Buy Rate Gross Average Match Rating Median Match Rating Peak
Match Rating matches >= * * * *
98/01/18 WWF Royal Rumble 0.97 (1) $3.62 2.38 * * 1/2 * * * 1/2 0% (0
of 6)
98/02/15 WWF IYH No Way Out 0.45 $1.67 1.46 * 1/2 * * * 1/2 0% (0 of
7)
98/03/29 WWF WrestleMania 1.78 (4) $7.7 1.81 * 1/2 * * * 1/4 0% (0 of
8)
WWF Average 1.07 $4.33 1.86 * * 1/4 * * * 1/2 0% (0 of 21)
98/01/25 WCW Souled Out 1.02 (2) $3.81 1.88 * * * * * 11.1% (1 of 9)
98/02/22 WCW SuperBrawl 1.1 (3) $4.12 1.68 * 1/4 * * * 3/4 0% (0 of
10)
98/03/15 WCW Uncensored 1.1 $4.12 1.69 * * 1/2 * * * 3/4 0% (0 of 9)
98/04/19 WCW Spring Stampede 2.4 * * 1/2 * * * * 20% (2 of 10)
WCW Average 1.07 $4.02 1.92 * 1/2 * * * 3/4 7.9% (3 of 38)
98/03/01 ECW Living Dangerously 0.23 $0.42 1.56 * 1/2 * * * 1/4 0% (0
of 8)
Footnotes:
(1) WWF claims 1.03;
(2) WCW claims 1.1;
(3) preliminary figure;
(4) preliminary figure;
Detailed data is available.
- WCW has Slamboree on 05/17/98.
- The WWF has In Your House on 05/31/98.
- New Japan has a big show on 06/05/98. Shinya Hashimoto will
challenge Tatsumi Fujinami for the IWGP Title and is expected to
recapture the belt. The promotion has nobody at Hashimoto's level to
carry things.
- WCW has the Great American Bash on 06/14/98.
- The WWF has King of the Ring on 06/28/98.
- The WWF has In Your House on 07/26/98.
- The WWF has SummerSlam on 08/30/98.
- The WWF has In Your House on 09/27/98.
- The WWF has In Your House on 10/18/98.
- The WWF has Survivor Series on 11/15/98.
- The WWF has In Your House on 12/13/98.
- Videos: I have posted something about the availability of videos. If
you missed it, I'll send it to you in e-mail upon request.
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Thanks to: Masaki Aso.
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